I hated losing.

I would rather die than lose. That's who I used to be. Every time I lost, my heart would fall down till it was at a point where it had sunk.

A loser who's scared of losing is a loser.

A loser who's not worried about losing is a winner.

If you're like me, your first impression of this chapter would be, I'm being generic and basically lying.

For five whole flipping years I worried about my final exams. At the end of the day, I got great grades but they didn't satisfy me. Nothing satisfies someone who's scared of losing. When your not scared at one point in your life, you'll be just happy with what you get and that's why you're a winner.

I was so scared of losing that I started writing, so no one could tell me my English was bad. I didn't start writing because I loved it but because I was dead scared of being behind. I was a loser.

I was so so scared of losing that I hid the fact that I too hated studying like every other student in my class. It came to a point where I started to resent it and if I hadn't realised that if I carried on treating myself the way I did, I'd hate it more. I was a loser.

Thankfully I realised my mistakes and now I love both of these things because I'm not scared of failing in any of these.

Failure is just a part of the journey. One who hasn't failed, hasn't learned, that never made sense to me till now: if you've never failed, you don't know how good it feels to be succeed. All your achievements just don't feel like they're good enough even though other people marvel them.

When Hidden Within got published, I didn't feel anything. It took be a brief moment before I smiled and told my dad how happy I was. Holding Hidden Within at that moment only reminded me of what failure I was. I wasn't able to get it actually published by a renowned publisher and neither did I find an agent.

Not once did I stop to think that not many sixteen year olds have done this. Till this date, sometimes I feel unsatisfied but then I remember, I have fingers, eyes and a brain. I can start again and write again.

I found something I wrote to myself eight years ago. It said: miseratio. I didn't know what the hell that meant so I searched it up and apparently it's Latin and means pity. Apparently I knew Latin? Anyhoo, that's another conversation but what struck me was that I was pitying myself.

I punched myself ever so lightly and asked myself why I was pulling myself down.

I was a winner, for not giving up even though everything and everyone thought I should.

If I had given up when I felt like, you might as well have said goodbye to me.

I may have lost but I was still a winner, I won my self esteem again.

YOU are a winner, no matter what you think.

This chapter was distorted and talked about too many things at the same time but it was honest.

Remembering you are a winner regardless what happens is hard and easy to forget. You need to promise me, dear dreamer, you won't give up and you won't forget you're a winner.

Say it with me, "I am a winner."

I AM A WINNER!!

☁︎︎

Prompt: "As he said goodnight and stroked her hair that night, he recalled their first kiss, if only she lived to feel the after effects."